In recent months many Israelis have been following Israeli basketball star Deni Avdija's progress in the NBA, but now Americans are following Israeli television's coverage of the Washington Wizards rookie.
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NBC Washington last week ran a story about an impersonation of Avdija on the Israeli sketch comedy show Eretz Nehederet ("Wonderful Land"), which also included an impersonation of the player's father, Zufer. The sketch lampooning the basketball star ran several weeks ago.
"If there was any doubt how famous Avdija is in Israel, this is a perfect indication," the NBC Washington report said.
Ori Laizerouvich, who portrayed Avdija in the sketch, told NBC Washington he was the obvious choice to play the role of the Wizards' rookie due to their similar appearance.
"We are twins separated at birth, but that's a different story," Laizerouvich said jokingly. "I feel grateful to work with the best makeup artists in Israel. This time it was super easy, no prosthetics were needed, so the whole thing took about 20 minutes. When I was impersonating [Quentin] Tarantino, it took four hours of makeup."
Laizerouvich went on to explain how he studied for the task of impersonating the young basketball star.
"As an actor and an imitator, I must be very precise in the manner of impersonations. Every single interview or video I watch is a gift. It helps me catch the mimics, body language and vocal sounds," he explained.
"With Deni, I saw that he repeats a lot of sentences such as, 'I'm super excited,' using a lower tone of voice. So, I used that as my key.
The real Deni Avdija, for his part, took being parodied on national television like a champ, and in fact seemed honored to be featured in the long-running weekly satire show, Israel's version of Saturday Night Live.
He posted a screenshot of the sketch to his Instagram feed, saying: "We made it!"
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